Mid Term 1 - Review

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School

University of Ottawa

Department

Sociology

Course

SOC1101

Professor

Forgot

Semester

Fall

Description

What is sociology?
 The study of society, a concrete abstraction: not something you can observe but is real
(affects us all) i.e. everyone wears clothes – enforced by law
Humans are social animals
 Driven/Compelled to be together. Reason why humans survived and are dominant
 Makes us happy – being accepted/loved
o 90% live in urban areas – always with people (cell, tv)
A person and people are fundamentally different things
 Person is rational thing with personality
 People create expectations
o Culture is created as an emergent property
 You can take 2 things (people) that are dangerous on their own and when
put together  new thing (oxygen + hydrogen)
 Not naturally created
These emergent properties have huge benefits... but also have a dark side
 Benefits
o With emergence of dif roles, less time spent on fundamental needs (farmer)
o Emerg of roles is not on individual level (class clown).
 Dark side
o Child labour in Pakistan (quarter of a billion under age of 15 work, 5 million under
age of 9)
o Economy = concrete abstraction (ex University  good job)
Sociologist study
 How people create, reinforce and challenge society
 How society affects individuals and people
Why are things the way they are (and not some other way?)
 We simplify complicated things/make mental short cuts (use a car, how does it work?)
o In life, do specific things to achieve others (plan a trip)
What is “society”?
 Concrete abstraction: nothing you can touch, taste or see.
 Formal rules, laws, norms, expectations – Lives are strongly patterned
o Cannot co-exist if we went around doing whatever we wanted
1 1. Societies are the product of human interactions
a. Social structure produced through consensus (agreement, negotiation) i.e. roles of
household flexible
b. Social structure creates conflict (legal system: protects us, but also property)
i. Wealthy vs. poor
c. Allan Johnson: “participate in something larger than ourselves”
2. While people create societies, societies are autonomous from any single person
a. “Self-perpetuating” – runs itself, in motion. With every new generation we create, no
reinventing, recreates itself (i.e. voting)
b. “Self enforcing: - mutual expectations reinforced by all of us (i.e. elevator)
c. “The world is full of choices but it‟s the things we don‟t choose that make us who
we are” – ex. ethnicity, gender. (woman lawyers, black people high end store)
d. Karl Marx: Individuals make their own choices but not freely – framed, structured
and manipulated by society
Sociology is the study of individuals and their behaviours in context of society and its forces.
o Presents freedom of choice vs. conflict from overcoming norms
Why are people attracted to the mirror image of themselves?
 Seeing strange in the familiar – make things appear strange (# hrs in wk at school)
o Structures children, creates transition, learn how to behave in class... (obsequious)
 Path from childhood  adulthood
o Education system is a giant “sorter”: takes individuality and reduces it to # (A-D)
 Creates “classes” of people
C. Wright Mills: Try seeing the world through new eyes.
o To learn the mechanics of the world, detach yourself. (Relationship, networks)
Macro sociology: looking at the “big social forces and institutions” (i.e politics, educational system)
 Why do they exist? Social forces channel choices/choice path of society.
 Compelled to be together, constantly in contact (i.e. elevator)
 People behave in “patterned” ways, coordinate behaviour acc. to norm to create a sort of
“dance”, follow predetermined “scripts”/expectations (i.e. greetings on sidewalk)
 Culture shock: when the norms are unknown, cannot adapt  awkward.
How to study society:
1. Looking for patterns: social trends/patterns.
2. Asking “Why do these exist?” (i.e. race acc. to income – not about skills)
3. Asking “How do these exist?”: we play a role in it (i.e. name on resume|ethnicity)
4. Building theories – create a testable theory from observation
2 Socialization
Nature vs. Nurture:
 Human behaviour is determined by  Influences in your life
genes
 Hot temper, competitiveness (pass down
 Survival instinct – take care of yourself. behaviour through generations)
- Newgenics: creating a “perfect society”/perfect genes and then reproducing them
- Phrenology: measuring the aspects of person‟s head (bumps) – intelligent/not, crim/not?
Understanding Human Behaviour: Looking for Laws in all the Wrong Places
 Look for patterns, tendencies and trends.
 We are authors of our own destiny – change to get along and be part of “larger thing”
The exceptional nature of the human infant
 Human babies, no instinct (no hardware, but software) – learners/blank slate
o Not instinct to have family/make friends
o Horses/Whales recognition of many things at birth, lots of instinct
Primary Socialization
 Early in life – constantly regulate environment.
o Teach kid how to react, behave and expectations (acceptability, empathy)
 Seeing beyond the self – others are important/legitimate
 Recognition of abstractions – building blocks of personal identity
o Manners, listening to authority, label – name.
 Construction of identity – beginning of what categories of gender mean
At issue – Gender socialisation
 Parents teach children roles by color they wear and how they treat them (boys = rough)
 Children observe patterns at home/outside families
 “Pink/Blue Issue” – Dorothy, Cinderella, Alice, Snow White = blue (Virgin Mary)
o Statistics show that dif gender  dif educational tracks
o Genderization: labelled a boy/girl? (ears pierce @ 3 yrs)
Sex vs. Gender
 Sex – reproductive equipment, biological
 Gender – learned over the course of life, variable/contingent. Hair, clothes, beh.
o Ex. 2/3 woman rather have a man as a boss: straight-talking vs. mood swings
How does gender socialisation happen?
3  Direct
o Language being told, observed roles
 Indirect
o Reward and sanction, peer reinforcement
Secondary socialization
 Beyond the family – institutions, peer groups
 Re socialisation – i.e. first year student university (learning the norms)
The impact of institutions
 Reinforcement principle relates to our home life, either go hand in glove or is conflictual
o Reading pleasure at home  good student
o Media - teaches stereotypes, norms, and controversy, capacity to deal with issues
The influence of peers
 Affect lifestyle choices (smoking, university)
 Standards, cues, feedback and Group formation/identity markers
o Core lesson: constant and everyday experience, what lets us get alongknow what
people do
Roles
 Emile Durkeim – one of founders of socio (how we get along)
o Metaphor to clock: small group of people (gears) make world (clock)
o Organic solidarity: cohesion comes from everyone doing dif things after become
dependent of everyone else
o Organic idea: broader grouping (Canada) = human body. Organ on own makes no
sense/cannot function, unless all at same time.
 When one thing doesn‟t work wellwhole structure suffers
Three Paradigms within Sociology
1. Structural Functionalism: perspective that looks at function of structures
a. Ex. Why are some people spiritual? What does it do?
2. Symbolic Interactionism: social structure emerges out of interactions with another
a. Roles emerge out of the way we treat others (ex Family and children)
b. Interaction via symbols
3. Conflict theory (neo-Marxism): looks at the world channelling conflict
a. Treat rich/poor people differently – based on choices of the powerful
4 A “Structural Functional” View of Roles
 Society is made up of roles that individuals assume – roles more important than individual
o “Framework” that allows society to function
The “Role Set”/Power of Roles Influencing Human Behaviour
 Roles only make sense in relation to one another (prof without students?)
o Zimbardo Experiment: 24 “most stable” students – guards/prisoners.
 Did actions they would